X’alnthos aliens.

Creating biomas, creating food, control by virus if loosing their control.

https://youtu.be/HaeeT8DF6-Q

https://www.miniwargaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=70003

Maybe it’s not a game.

The X'lanthos are masters of biotechnology, biology is the first level at which they think. Similar to orks, X'lanthos Changers don't just change the atmosphere when they arrive on a planet…. they introduce an entire ecosystem. Shaping the natural life itself to X'lanthoform the planet to their desires.

An entire pyramid of life must grow, which will serve the X'lanthos. Their biotechnological ability to enslave and domesticate is so sophisticated that they don't need gardeners for their fields, or fences for their livestock… they create animals whose instinct is to gather, harvest, and store the bounty of plants, plants engineered for their fruitfulness, and they make their shepherd dogs so smart and lethal and intelligent that the herds don't even notice they are being domesticated.

Of course, every planet is different, and different species thrive in each environment - so they bring a few minor support species, like orks bring squigs and gretchen. But the smartest thing to do is to take the already existing life… and twist it to your own plan.

So who does this for them? Who is the vanguard they send with their craft to begin the X'lanthoforming? Decisions must be made on site; but the X'lanthos can't send Haussmans or AI to do this work for them. What do they have in stead of automated machinery? They have the biological version of the same thing. Slaves.

They use a slave species which they've bioengineered into a specialist slave role… to assimilate local species, ensnaring the best of them for the task required, and manipulate them to serve the ideal, X'lanthos ecosystem. A slave species which serves as the scouts, as collectors and queen bees to the surrounding fauna, and as fierce shepherd dogs for harvesting meat for the masters.

X'lanthoformers. Immune system of the Cocoon World.